Weekend Box Office - 21

New movies were released this weekend and one of them was top dog, but I'm setting that aside for the moment. There's much bigger news about a much better movie.

Horton Hears A Who, has easily become one of the best movies of the year so far (which, given the competition, isn't really saying much, but nevermind that). Now it's become the first movie of the year to break $100 million, further securing its spot as the highest domestic grossing movie of the year to date. It's always refreshing when well made movies are rewarded with noticable receipts at the box office. Only slightly more refreshing are the times when really awful movies do really poorly. That brings me to my next piece of great news.

Superhero Movie, the latest awful genre-spoof film to infest theaters set a record of its own. For the first time since Scary Movie began lowering the standards of comedy, one of these spoof movies opened under the $10 million mark. Could it be that after nearly a decade of this crap the people who watch it are finally beginning to realize that the movies just aren't that funny? I hate to admit it, but that learning curve makes sense for that particular audience. The movie came in third, it made a pittance and it's likely to disappear faster than a super-delegate at a Clinton rally. I'm all fuzzy on the inside.

The top movie this weekend, without much surprise, was 21. Most critics have been wagging their fingers calling it a waste of time with nearly each writer abusing the phrase "what happens in Vegas should stay in Vegas". The only thing more predictable than the movie itself are the reviewers using that ridiculous line. One big problem the movie has that many critics are harping about is its "based on a true story" tagline. Films should really stop saying that since the Hollywood film process pretty much strips off anything even remotely resembling a "real story" experience. That's definitely the case with 21, but that doesn't make it any less of a fun ride and well worth the $23 million audiences chucked at it this weekend.

As mentioned earlier, Superhero Movie was poorly received, only making $9.5 million, but still managed to hit the number three spot. Stop-Loss, MTV film's latest attempt at making a movie also doubled as an effort to create political Democrat drones out of Channing Tatum fans. While it may have managed to make more in one weekend than either Clinton or Obama's campaigns have managed in the same time frame, that was barely enough to hit $4.5 million and eighth place.

If you're looking down the list for Run, Fat Boy, Run, don't bother. With only $2.4 million out of the gate it couldn't even break into the number twelve spot. Only showing in 1100 theatres, it was likely to have a rough ride, but now it looks like David Schwimmer's debut won't ever get to see the inside of the top ten.

WEEKEND BOX OFFICE TOP TEN March 28 - 30, 2008

LW = Last Week WR = Weeks ReleasedTHTRS = Number of Screens* Denotes new release.Click on title to read CB Review